Old Snake backs in club to end streak
A KEY cog in the last Cairns Taipans squad to go down in seven games in a row has urged the current team to go back to basics to stop their losing sequence.
Retired centre Matt Burston, who has remained in the Far North since stepping away from basketball, was on the Snakes team that lost seven straight games in late 2013, as was current Snakes Mitch Young and Alex Loughton.
After a positive preseason, those Taipans won their first two games of the season before falling in a hole – losing their next seven matches.
Their plight mirrors Mike Kelly’s men who blew away Brisbane in Round 1 but are yet to taste victory since.
NBL championship winner, Burston, believes first-year coach Kelly needs to trust his system and his players.
“That team in 2013, we tried to change too much when we were losing but it clicked once we got back to simplifying things and going back to what worked for us in the preseason,” the 35-year-old said.
“We needed to trust the team process.
“Once you do that, you get that first win and get a roll with some confidence up, you start knocking in the wins at home, things started to go our way.
“The current Taipans team can do the same and I can see similarities between the two seasons because the league is so evenly placed, any team can go on a run.”
The current Snakes squad have dropped their last six games and face the top of the ladder Perth on Saturday night. Cairns second in charge Jamie O’Loughlin believes there is still confidence in the squad despite the losses mounting up.
“There were positive signs from the Melbourne game and talking to the players, there is disappointment about another loss but there was positive signs that we can build on,” O’Loughlin said.
Burston, who played in orange between 2013 and 2016, says hard work on the training court will get Cairns back on track.
“It is cliche but in the inner sanctum of our team, we did not care too much about what was being said outside our four walls, we knew we were working our butts off,” the retired centre said.
“We could feel that things were going to turn around because the day-to-day stuff as a team had not changed.
“We knew things would swing our way because we were putting that work in.”
The 211cm Burston was encouraged by what he saw from old sparring partner Nate Jawai in the loss to Melbourne and is hopeful he can “spearhead” the offence going forward.